


in ways that can't be said

by GraeWrites



Series: Coming Home [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: A couple of times, Blood, Canon Scene re-hashed with a shipping lens, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical peril, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt Doesn't Understand Feelings, Geralt is going to drown in his own emotions one day i swear, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Headaches, Jaskier and Ciri have a moment, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Listed as a part 2 but can be easily read and understood independently, M/M, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Some light Geralt Whump elements, Yennefer makes a very brief appearance, concern of sensory overload but no actual sensory overload occurs, cursing, death mention, if that's a thing, its okay because Jaskier is there to help, let me know if other tags should be added!, outrageously soft at times, some gore, they care about each other so much, title from TAD lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraeWrites/pseuds/GraeWrites
Summary: Geralt lives in a very dark and violent world. Good things are few and far between. He doesn't know what it means, really, to be in love.So when he falls in love with Jaskier, it happens slowly. Gradually. Reluctantly.Or, 10 moments where Geralt falls a little more in love with the bard no matter how much it scares him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Coming Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725334
Comments: 51
Kudos: 687





	in ways that can't be said

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all. In which I continue to explore all the things these two have to share with one another and teach each other (and me along the way). Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine. Thank you so much for the support you've all shown me thus far. I hope you enjoy this!

I.

Geralt is on his second ale when the bard starts his set. The Witcher stays tucked away in the corner of the tavern where he usually prefers to sit, as it provides a decent vantage point of the room. That it also encouraged other people to leave him alone was, really, just an added bonus. Tonight seemed to be no exception that rule. Jaskier had sat across from him and jabbered on as he always did—his energy especially heightened given that it was right before a performance—but he had been the only one to engage the Witcher in conversation thus far.

The bard usually burned off his excess energy during his set. Geralt finds himself hoping the bard doesn’t expend _too_ much of that energy, as they needed to head out early in the morning. Tired Jaskier was an even _chattier_ Jaskier, and Geralt wasn’t sure he had the patience for it.

Jaskier is standing on the small stage across the tavern. Through the haze of idle chatter and drinks being poured at the bar, Geralt listens to Jaskier finish tuning the lute. The final string the bard plucks sounds slightly higher pitched than usual to the Witcher. He sees the tip of Jaskier’s tongue poke out between his lips in concentration, adjusting something on the instrument. He plucks it again. It sounds right to Geralt now, and the bard seems to agree if his satisfied nod is anything to go by.

He starts off with a popular tune—the one about the daughter of a fish merchant—and Geralt turns his attention to the venison and potatoes the barmaid sets in front of him before she quickly ducks away. Geralt stops paying close attention to Jaskier’s performance as his mind drifts to the rumors he’d caught wind of regarding a wraith. The trick would be finding someone who could confirm or deny the rumors; and if confirm, then someone who would pay him a fair price to deal with it.

He could also go kill it himself and hope to be able to sell it for parts, perhaps. That was riskier business, though. Still, Geralt considers the merits of it as Jaskier performs.

“Bard!” A sharp voice yanks Geralt from his thoughts. An older man, with thinning blonde hair and a stocky build, has leapt to his feet and immediately claimed the attention of the room. “If you keep singin’ the praises of the fuckin’ Butcher of Blaviken, I’ll break that fuckin’ lute o’er your fuckin’ head.”

Geralt’s jaw works. He’d always hated that name. He hates how it follows him like a shadow, the way it makes his arms feel heavy with Renfri’s unconscious weight every time he hears it. Still, it’s not a fight worth starting when he needs work and the man’s worst offense is using a name that travels with Geralt like a curse he can’t get rid of. He flexes his grip around the tankard in his hands instead.

“Sir,” Jaskier says, an odd and barely constrained edge to his voice, “the _White Wolf_ is widely regarded as a hero across the Continent.”

“The Butcher ain’t no hero,” the man spits. “Just a monster gettin’ off on the sufferin’ of others.”

It’s an unoriginal insult, Geralt thinks. The Witcher’s lips press into a thin line before he swallows down more of the ale in front of him. If Jaskier is smart, he’ll let it go. He’ll stick to the songs in his repertoire that aren’t about Geralt, and he should still be able to charm the audience enough to earn a bit of coin for his trouble.

But Jaskier is—evidently—not a smart man.

“Bold words coming from someone who is too much a coward to face down the wraith plaguing his own town. The only thing you have less of than honor, sir, is shame. You slander the name of the very person ready to risk his _life_ so that your _crops_ don’t wither.” The bard’s eyes are aflame with indignation so strong it brings Geralt up short. “You call Geralt of Rivia a monster, but he is _twice_ the man you will ever be.”

It’s such an impassioned, sincere defense… and all Geralt can do in the silence that seems to echo in the tavern after it is stare at the bard as something knots in his chest.

One of the man’s friends tugs on his arm and he sits again. Jaskier’s gaze doesn’t waver as he starts the next song.

“When a humble bard…”

II.

Jaskier drops a bucket of water onto his head, and Geralt hums at the welcomed shock, scrubbing the metallic, rancid scent of selkiemore off his face. The water smells faintly of rose, which the Witcher knows to be Jaskier’s doing. It’s… pleasant, if unnecessary.

“Now now,” Jaskier chides, “stop your boorish grunts of protest. It is one night of bodyguarding your very best friend in the whole wide world. How hard could it be?”

Geralt glances over at the bard. “I’m not your friend.” He wasn’t sure what Jaskier was to him, but _friend_ seemed like the wrong term. It didn’t fit right in his mouth as a way to describe the bard.

“Oh, oh really? Oh, you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom?” Geralt levels a glare at Jaskier, but the bard seems unphased. “Yeah, well, yeah exactly. That’s what I thought.”

It’s all Geralt can do to not roll his eyes, watching Jaskier cross back to the salts and oils in front of him as he rambles. “Every lord, knight, and twopenny king worth his salt will be at this betrothal. The Lioness of Cintra herself of Jaskier’s triumphant performance!”

It’s a deflection at best, even as Jaskier throws some added salt to Geralt’s bath, and the Witcher just stares at the bard framed in the candlelight around them. He has the feeling Jaskier may be hiding something. Or rather, trying to redirect attention from something else.

“How many of these lords want to kill you?” Geralt asks flatly.

Jaskier’s façade deflates just a bit. “Hard to say,” he replies, and Geralt is reminded once again of how openly honest Jaskier tended to be. “One stops keeping count after a while. Wives, concubines, mothers sometimes.”

Geralt could do without the list, really. It sends a twist of unexpected annoyance through his chest. Jaskier notices—but then again, he’d always had this habit of paying more attention to Geralt’s expressions than most humans did. The Witcher isn’t sure why.

The bard sits on the edge of the tub, framing Geralt’s form with his outstretched hands. “Ooh, yeah, that face! Scary face. No lord in his right mind will come close if you’re standing next to me with a puss like that.”

Geralt reaches for his ale—he’s really not drunk enough to deal with this—when Jaskier snatches the cup out of his grip.

“Ooh, on second thought…” Jaskier continues, because he never seems to stop talking really, “might want to lay off the Cintran ale. A clear head would be best.” He pats Geralt’s shoulder as he stands.

It an unusually casual touch and Geralt’s skin tingles with it even after Jaskier steps away. Still, Geralt tries not to dwell on it. “I will not suffer tonight sober,” he growls, “just because you hid your sausage in the wrong royal pantry. I’m not killing anyone. Not over the petty squabbles of men.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” comes Jaskier’s voice from behind him. “You never get involved. Except you actually do, all the time.” Geralt snaps his gaze over to him, but he can’t find it in himself to argue with the bard on that point. Perhaps Jaskier had a point. At least on that front.

Jaskier crosses back in front of him. “Ugh,” he continues. “Is this what happens when you get old? You get unbearably crotchety and cantankerous?”

Geralt sighs, pulling his arms off the edge of the tub in the hopes that it will ease the way his shoulder is still tingling slightly from where Jaskier had rested his hand on it a moment ago.

“Actually, I’ve always wanted to know. Do Witchers ever retire?”

“Yeah,” Geralt snaps. “When they slow and get killed.”

“Come on,” Jaskier says, his voice softening just a little. “You must want something for yourself when all this monster hunting nonsense is over with.”

“I want nothing,” Geralt replies immediately. Instinctively, more than a legitimate answer. He hadn’t wanted anything for a very, very long time. And anything he may have wanted at one point certainly had proved itself impossible for a Witcher like himself to achieve, so what even would be the point to desire it in the first place?

There’s a waver to something in Jaskier’s eyes that puzzles the Witcher, but it’s gone before Geralt can put a name to it. “Well, who knows?” the bard says, crossing to the tub to crouch in front of Geralt. Jaskier is abruptly close like this, facing Geralt head-on while the Witcher sits in the wash basin. Geralt averts his eyes. “Maybe someone out there will want you.”

The idea that someone might want him one day like that—like how Jaskier is suggesting—sends a thrill of something almost like fear through the Wticher’s stomach.

“I need no one,” he replies immediately. Then he looks back at Jaskier. “And the last thing I want is someone needing me.”

“And yet,” Jaskier says softly, meeting Geralt’s gaze unwaveringly. “Here we are.”

And _that_ —well. The almost-fear feeling in Geralt’s stomach turns to something a little less sharp. A little warmer. No less _terrifying_ , and yet somehow… nice.

Geralt tears his gaze away, desperate for a distraction from _that_ feeling. “Where the fuck are my clothes, Jaskier?”

III.

Geralt has lost track of just how many performances of Jaskier’s he has sat through over their years of travels together. He knows the bard’s musical repertoire nearly as well as he knows monster classifications. So really, the Witcher does not have an explanation, even to himself, of why this time is different.

But the bard is making his rounds, strumming his lute with a practiced ease, singing an exaggerated song about Geralt fending off a bruxa with one hand tied behind his back… and Geralt can’t take his eyes off him.

The Witcher had never enjoyed being the center of attention. A part of him had gotten used to it a long time ago—in his line of work, looking like he does, one has a nasty habit of drawing unwanted gazes—but he’d never sought it out. Then there was Jaskier, who thrived in environments just like this one, where he could command the center of attention. He thrived in backwater village taverns full of people desperate for mediocre ale and a good story.

And Geralt has to give credit where credit is due—Jaskier can spin a good tale. The bard reveled in it, even. Geralt hadn’t asked him, but he could tell from the man’s unrelenting enthusiasm that as much as Jaskier was a performer, not _all_ of it was an act. There was an earnestness to him every time he sang. A genuine belief that what he was doing mattered.

Geralt takes another bite of the stew in front of him, his gaze not wavering as Jaskier finishes the song to enthusiastic applause. He grins, thanks the crowd graciously, and launches immediately into the next song. And still, Geralt watches.

The bard had discarded his blue doublet several songs ago, tossing it into the seat across from Geralt as he passed. Jaskier’s off white shirt is tucked into the blue pants that are several shades darker than his eyes, and those eyes are really what Geralt keeps finding his own gaze drawn to. Eyes that are vibrant with energy and life when they briefly meet Geralt’s across the room.

There’s a very unexpected, soft squeeze in Geralt’s chest.

The bard had always radiated light and joy on a level that Geralt privately thought outshone most other humans. Jaskier is a beacon—evidenced by the near-blinding grin that the bard throws to him before turning away—and Geralt feels the odd urge to shy away from it. As if that light might expose all the parts of him that he’d spent years hiding away.

But Jaskier is nothing if not relentlessly and stupidly persistent. And he seems—had always seemed—entirely unaware of how rare his own vibrancy truly is. It is an integral part of him that chooses again and again and again to share with others. And no matter how much they take from him, Jaskier seems to always have more he is willing to give.

It seems like a kind of selflessness to Geralt, and the tightness in his chest gives a sharp, aching clench.

IV.

Geralt and Jaskier end up at the same party completely by accident, really. The Witcher didn’t even know that the bard was in town; the last he’d heard of Jaskier’s recent exploits had him giving a guest lecture at Oxenfurt. Geralt had been passing through Temeria when he was approached and none-too-kindly asked to attend the king’s banquet. Geralt had almost turned the offer down—he didn’t like being seen as some novelty to be ogled at—but the promise of good food and decent drink didn’t sound _horrendous_ , and besides. The king had demanded it, and Geralt really didn’t want to deal with the bloodshed that could’ve resulted from his refusal.

So he begrudgingly attended, and did his best to stick to the outskirts of the collection of boisterous ladies and lords that had amassed in the banquet hall. He’d seen Jaskier the moment the bard stepped into the room—sporting a golden doublet and a beaming grin—and Jaskier had seen him almost as quickly. There’d been a flicker of surprise, but then Jaskier was being asked to play a song to start things off, and he’d busied himself with performing.

The food is good, Geralt will grant that much, and the wine is some of the best that he’d consumed in a long time. He’s ribbed for a story or two by curious nobles, and Geralt tells them enough to pass for stiff politeness and little else. Jaskier had always been the one to fill in the details. Besides, Geralt finds that he doesn’t like telling them to the men who appear to only listen until they feel insecure in their own manhood.

Jaskier wasn’t like that, Geralt finds himself thinking. Jaskier listened for other reasons. Always attentive. Always… _enthralled_. Even when he was “stingy with the details”, as the bard often accused.

The party has stretched for hours when Jaskier finally takes a break and Geralt sees him starting to weave through the drunken crowd towards him. Geralt takes a long swallow of wine and arcs an eyebrow at the bard as he approaches. Jaskier smells of honeysuckle and sweat, his doublet open to reveal the light blue shirt underneath.

Jaskier’s eyes are bright, but there’s a slight crease between his brows. “How are you managing, Geralt?” he asks, with far more sincerity than Geralt is prepared for.

Geralt arcs a brow at him.

Jaskier just tilts his head, then gestures vaguely to the drunken dancing the attendees are doing. “It seemed a question worth asking, given tonight. It’s rather loud, even for me, and Temeria always overseasons their food in my opinion, not to mention the smells involved what with sweat and ale and food. I can’t imagine the assault it is on your… Witchery senses.”

Geralt stops, blinking at him. Jaskier was worried that he—a _Witcher_ —was… overwhelmed? Geralt wonders if he should be insulted, but he isn’t. There’s an odd feeling in his gut, something warm that isn’t alcohol, that stirs at Jaskier’s explanation. Geralt doesn’t know what to say. He just stares at him.

Jaskier holds his hands up as if in surrender. “Forgive me for checking in on a friend.” He drops his hands, the tilt to his head returning and his gaze… softening somehow. “You’ll tell me, though, won’t you, Geralt? If it gets to be too much?”

Suddenly, that soft, concerned look in the bard’s eyes is too much. Geralt looks away and distracts himself by taking a swallow of wine. “Hm,” he agrees.

V.

Geralt hears Jaskier scream something that sounds almost like his name before he even feels the bite. The sharp jaws clench around his thigh and Geralt grits his teeth, swinging blindly with the silver sword. It makes contact with the basilisk enough to make it shriek and pull back. But it already released venom, and Geralt feels it pulse with a blinding pain.

His vision swims. His knees buckle, slamming into the stone floor of the cavern.

“Fuck.” The world tilts sideways as the rest of him falls.

A voice, high and panicked and oddly familiar, is yelling something distantly. Far away. Too far away to help him, really.

He has to get up. He _has_ to. Geralt grinds his teeth and pushes against the ground with as much strength as he can manage. He gets his chest off the ground but his legs won’t cooperate and then suddenly someone is leaping over him and snatching the silver sword beside him.

“You want him? You’re gonna have to go through me, fucker.”

_Jaskier?_

Geralt watches in a haze as the bard lunges at the basilisk with the silver sword in his hands.

“Jaskier!” he shouts, because the bard is _stupid_ and _reckless_ and he is _going to get killed_.

But the bard doesn’t respond, and Geralt watches as the blade flashes in the dark cavern. The Witcher struggles to push himself up but now his arms won’t even support him and he’s going to die, but first the world is going to make him watch _Jaskier_ die and that thought fills Geralt with a cold, desperate dread.

“ _Jaskier!”_

There’s a sick squelching sound and when Geralt looks, he sees the bard is up against the creature with the hilt of his sword buried into the basilisk’s chest. It screeches and thrashes, and Geralt’s breath chokes in his throat. But Jaskier is nothing if not nimble, and he rolls to avoid the wings that whip around towards him. The screeching gets louder for a moment. The creature stumbles. Collapses.

There’s a sudden, echoing silence that is filled only with the sound of Jaskier’s labored breathing and, at least for Geralt, his pounding heartbeat.

“Jask—” Geralt rasps, wanting to ask if he’s injured but his voice cutting out with the sharp burst of pain as the venom seizes.

 _He’s going to die_.

“Geralt.”

Jaskier is suddenly right above him. When did that happen?

Geralt feels Jaskier brush a hand back through his hair and cup his head. Something is getting pushed against his lips.

“Drink it, darling,” Jaskier murmurs, so softly that Geralt wonders—perhaps deliriously—if the bard is even aware that he’s just called Geralt _darling_ , of all things.

When he looks back on this moment, Geralt will say that the venom coursing through his system made his thoughts hazy and his will pliable. That his weakened state is why the warmth in his chest happens even before the potion Jaskier is forcing to his lips reaches his mouth. It has nothing to do with that term Jaskier used.

Nothing at all.

VI.

It’s the soft gasp that really gets Geralt’s attention, causing him to halt Roach and glance at the bard beside him. They have maybe about two hours before sundown and had spent most of the day traveling along this road headed towards Kaedwen. Jaskier had filled most of the long hours with aimless chatter and half-composed songs. Geralt half-listened, grateful for the familiarity of the lilt in the bard’s voice even if he wasn’t constantly tuned in to the precise words the bard happened to be rambling on about. He’d missed the way Jaskier filled the silence since their parting after the dragon hunt.

Then Jaskier’s musings had broken off with a sudden, sharp inhale.

“Oh, Geralt, _look_!” Jaskier breathes with surprising reverence. Geralt doesn’t have time to ask the bard what caught his attention before he’s rushing off into the field of wildflowers just ahead of them, nearly 70 yards away.

The Witcher goes to call out to him, but something makes the bard’s name die in his throat. He watches as Jaskier spreads his arms out as he rushes into the expanse of yellow and violet and blue. The sun sits low in the sky and frames him in a soft halo of light as he rushes delightedly through the flowers. Geralt’s chest warms slightly.

Jaskier looks over his shoulder at him then, like he can sense it, and offers Geralt a dazzlingly bright smile. He kneels then, in the middle of the field as if he’s about to meditate, and his fingers brushing softly against the petals of the flowers around him before he flops onto his back. Sinks into the flowers around him.

Geralt had never really known what it meant to love. He’d read once that most people learn of love from their parents when they’re children, but his own mother had abandoned him to become a Witcher—a process so few boys survived that, really, she might as well have abandoned him to die. Geralt refuses to believe that was what love was supposed to look like. Or how it was supposed to feel.

Earlier in his life, Geralt used to ask. He’d see couples who claimed to be in love, and he’d wonder what that _meant_. What did it _feel like_ , because Geralt didn’t know. The answers others provided to him were either full of derision— _what does it matter, Witcher? You’re not capable of it anyway_ —or too vague to be of any help— _it’s just something you feel, I think_.

Then he met Jaskier, who seemed to be brimming with love _all the time_ it was a wonder the bard didn’t burst. He sang songs that talked of love in romantic, elaborate metaphors that Geralt understood at surface level, but that gave him a bit of a headache when he thought too long about them. Jaskier seemed to understand this concept of love so readily and intrinsically that it was, in truth, a little intimidating.

But when Jaskier sits up as Geralt approaches him—flower petals and grass clinging to his hair, his blue eyes sparkling in the near-setting sun, a warm and content smile gracing his lips—the thought whispers unassuming in Geralt’s mind.

Maybe, just maybe, _this_ is what love feels like. 

VII.

“ _You_ , Princess, are beginning to take after Geralt with the amount of brooding you’ve been doing today,” Jaskier chimes lightly, but Geralt looks up and sees the crease of concern between his brows. “And that will simply not do, because I can’t very well be surrounded by brooding, angst-ridden individuals, now can I?”

Geralt glances over at Yennefer, who merely arcs an unimpressed eyebrow at the bard. The cottage Yennefer had recently taken up residence in was small and unassuming on the outside. It seemed larger on the inside, more spacious, and Geralt knew it to be the work of an enchantment set on by the sorceress. Ever since Sodden, Yennefer had needed to be careful in her own right about avoiding and evading the ever-growing presence of Nilfgaard. She moved every few months, but had taken Ciri under her wing the past few weeks to teach her control her “chaos”, as she’d called it. Geralt called it magic.

They’d been dropping by to check in before moving on, and Jaskier’s comment wasn’t off the mark. Geralt had noticed it as well.

There were days when Ciri’s quietness rivaled the Witcher’s own. Where the Lion Cub of Cintra seemed saddled with a weight too heavy for a girl of her age. On those days, Geralt thinks he understands more than most would—the dullness in her icy blue eyes is brought on by the fog of grief of losing everyone she loved in a night and watching her city burn as she fled. It reminds the Witcher of how he’d felt following sacking of Kaer Morhen.

But just because Geralt understands doesn’t mean he’s known what to do on those days. He hates it. Hates that he doesn’t know how to help her, because nobody had been there to help him.

Ciri glances up at Jaskier from where she sits beside Geralt. “I just… miss home, Jaskier. That’s all.”

Jaskier’s lips press together in thought, his head tilting slightly. Geralt watches as something brightens in his eyes before he says, “Well, I have just the thing for that.” He glances over. “Yennefer?”

The sorceress looks as surprised as Geralt feels, but Jaskier just quirks a brow at her and Yen smiles faintly before inclining her head. Geralt doesn’t have a clue what silent request the bard has made, but he starts strumming a familiar song on the lute in his hands for several seconds—it’s upbeat, and though Geralt can’t place the title of it, he knows he recognizes it as one of Jaskier’s jigs. A few seconds go by, and then Jaskier’s fingers stop plucking at the strings but the music continues to fill the space.

Jaskier grins, and when Geralt glances at Yennefer, he sees that she’s got a faint smile as well.

The bard sets the lute aside and jumps gracefully to his feet. He extends a hand out to Ciri, his smile soft and sincere. “Will you dance with me, princess?”

Ciri hesitates for only a moment before she takes Jaskier’s hand. Jaskier’s grin brightens, and the two of them fall into a dance that Geralt recognizes as one usually done at court amidst nobility. It doesn’t surprise Geralt that Jaskier knows the dances of court—he has to play them often enough so it makes sense to Geralt that he would also know the steps—but a part of him is surprised when he hears Ciri _laughing_.

As she and Jaskier spin in circles and the bard adds an extra flourish to one of his steps, Ciri smiles and _laughs_ and something in Geralt’s chest gives a sharp squeeze. Jaskier grins back at her, looking as relieved and content at the spark of mirth in her eyes as Geralt feels, and the Witcher feels a very slight, and unexpected lump in his throat.

VIII.

“Geralt?”

“Hm.”

“Will you let me try something?”

The question is asked surprisingly quietly in the dark forest around them, barely louder than the crackling fire between them. Geralt doesn’t know why Jaskier would be speaking so quietly, but a part of him counts it as a small mercy. Because the pressure behind his eyes that had started this morning had steadily grown to a dull throb up through the top of Geralt’s skull by mid-morning. By late afternoon, the headache wasn’t quite so dull anymore.

Geralt hadn’t seen a need to say anything about it, though. He just rode on Roach and tried to not squint too much against the blinding sunlight that made his head spike. Jaskier had seemed to lose steam in conversation as Geralt was even more unwilling to engage with him than normal. He hoped the bard wasn’t too offended, as by the early evening, it was really all Geralt could do to stay upright on Roach and keep moving forward.

“A new song?” Geralt muses, and carefully manages to keep the internal wince off his face.

Jaskier huffs something that’s almost a laugh. “No. Just… here.” He turns to the bag beside him and rummages through it. Geralt watches in the dim light of the fire as the bard pulls out a small cloth and a vial. He dampens the cloth with part of the contents, then pushes himself to his feet and crosses over. He kneels beside him.

There’s something soft in his eyes, Geralt thinks. Or maybe it’s just the way his face is shadowed that makes his eyes look bigger than normal. “Close your eyes, Geralt.”

And Geralt does. He tries to tell himself it’s because even the firelight is too much with this pounding in his head, but he knows it’s not just that. It’s such a simple, easy request and it’s _Jaskier_ that makes it. So Geralt lets his eyes fall shut.

He feels Jaskier drape the cloth over his face. “Breathe in for me.”

He does. It’s lavender oil, he realizes. The scent is faint, diluted—careful to not be too overpowering, even given his enhanced sense of smell—but it blocks out most other scents around him. Geralt feels part of his jaw untense just a fraction.

“That’s it. Keep breathing.”

He feels Jaskier’s hands brush against his temples, then a slight nudge and some shifting and suddenly, Geralt is being guided to rest his head against something softer than the log it had been on a moment ago. _Jaskier’s lap_. Through the lavender, this close, Geralt can smell the faint honeysuckle traces that seemed to cling to the bard.

“Let me help,” Jaskier whispers in the dark, and then his fingers are moving deftly against Geralt’s temple, gradually up through his scalp, encouraging Geralt to breathe.

Through the ease of his muscles and the lightening of the tension in his head, Geralt becomes aware that somehow, Jaskier had known exactly what was wrong. Geralt is sure he hadn’t said anything about it, and a headache is hardly a life-or-death situation. But Jaskier _knew_ and, more than that…

 _Let me help_. 

The Witcher feels a little dizzy all of a sudden and so _abruptly vulnerable_ that it scares him a little bit. It sends a jolt of something sharp and electric up through his core but Geralt swallows down the urge to pull away because… it’s nice. This softness, this _gentleness_ that Geralt does not and has never deserved is offered so willingly, and Geralt cannot bring himself to pull away.

Instead, he breathes and listened to Jaskier’s fluttering heartbeat.

IX.

Geralt feels the drops hit the top of his head seconds before the rain begins a steady sprinkle. Geralt isn’t shocked, exactly. The sky had been a flat overcast since this morning, and he could smell the promise of rain clinging in the air as he and Jaskier had gathered herbs about a mile outside of the village they were staying for the time being.

But then the sprinkle turns to a downpour. “Fuck,” Geralt sighs under his breath.

He glances over at the bard beside him, who a moment ago had been rambling about his recent lecture at Oxenfurt regarding the role of narrative music in shaping cultural perspective. Geralt had a feeling that the bard had, in fact, just delivered the exact speech to the Witcher, but he hadn’t minded. Not when Jaskier’s voice carried that familiar, melodic lilt that underscored his excitement and passion on the subject.

There’s a teasing mirth in Jaskier’s bright blue eyes that eases into something softer. Geralt doesn’t know why. For a moment, it looks like the bard—for once—is lost in his own thoughts that he doesn’t speak aloud. It’s… unusual.

Geralt opens his mouth to ask him or tease him—he’s honestly not sure which is about to pass from his lips—when Jaskier cuts him off.

“And you thought the lute case was a poor investment. Well, how do you feel now, Geralt?” Jaskier sets his hand on the strap across his chest, almost protectively. “We still have a mile to go before shelter, and such time for a _lute_ to spend in rain like _this_ …” He shakes his head, his dark hair dripping rainwater onto his nose. “It would be nothing short of an absolute, irrevocable tragedy.”

“Hmm,” Geralt replies, because perhaps the bard has a _point_. A raindrop unceremoniously drips into Geralt’s eye and he blinks, then shoots a glare up at the sky.

“Not a fan of the rain?” Jaskier asks.

The truth is, Geralt _isn’t_ a fan of the rain. Not really. It makes it harder to see, and it clings to his lashes in a way that makes his already sensitive eyes sting a bit. Which isn’t anything he can’t handle—he’s done it hundreds of times before, he’ll do it hundreds of times yet to come—but the rain would also wash away most of the tracks he’d been hoping to follow later this evening to the kikimora that was terrorizing the town.

“It will make it harder to track—what are you doing?” Geralt cuts himself off when he looks back at the bard, who is half-way to shedding his violet doublet. Jaskier finishes pulling out of it. His dark blue shirt underneath is immediately drenched.

Unfazed, Jaskier rolls his eyes. “You left your cloak back at the inn and I know, though you will adamantly deny it, that the _real_ reason you hate the rain is because it gets into your eyes and makes it harder for your sensitive, Witchery eyes to see. So, here.” He holds the garment out, his gaze looking down the road ahead of them.

Geralt stares at it. This was… ridiculous. Jaskier was sacrificing his own comfort so that Geralt could… what, block some of the rain a bit easier? Not only did Jaskier gain nothing from this but he actively lost something in the name of Geralt’s _comfort_ and… the Witcher doesn’t know what to do with that. It was such a small, simple gesture but there’s a weight to it that Geralt cannot ignore.

Something heavy, warm, soft sits in his stomach as he stares at it.

“Jaskier…”

“Honestly, Geralt, you’ll be doing me a favor. Wet doublets are dreadfully heavy, and as I am already saddled with carrying the weight of this lute and your reputation…” Jaskier glances back then and offers a smile.

It’s a flimsy attempt to make Geralt feel better about accepting Jaskier’s simple selflessness. A part of Geralt wants to refuse. But when Jaskier is smiling at him like that, offering such a small piece of him that doesn’t _feel_ that small to Geralt… well. Geralt finds himself taking the doublet from his hands gently.

And if Jaskier spins away to welcome the rainfall as Geralt holds the doublet above his head to shield the rain, well. Maybe that heavy, warm, soft feeling spreads through him in a way that makes the rain feel not quite so cold and annoying.

X.

Geralt hears it first. There’s the sound of something _snapping_ with a flash of green light behind him and it’s all less than a second but Geralt still feels that he should have been faster.

Because he looks over his shoulder, sees Jaskier hit the ground with the sound breaking bones echoing in his ears.

Jaskier _screams_.

“JASKIER!” Geralt roars, but panic closes his throat in the next moment. He slashes viciously at the figure in front of him, and the head of the injured soldier in front of him rolls off his shoulders. Geralt growls low in his throat—Jaskier is _silent_ and Geralt is _shaking_ —and hurls the knife at his belt towards the mage almost blindly.

It sinks between her eyes. The sting of copper in the air barely registers to the Witcher because all he can focus on—all he can _smell_ —is the acrid, sharp scent of pain that radiates from Jaskier on the forest floor, several feet away. Geralt’s eyes snap to him before the mage has even hit the ground and he sees the way Jaskier is trembling so hard he’s vibrating but at least he’s moving. At least he’s breathing.

Geralt makes sure the mage _isn’t_ , and then he’s sprinting the short distance to Jaskier and sliding to him on his knees. Jaskier is on his side, his back to the Witcher. As gently as he can, Geralt places a hand on his shoulder and rolls the bard onto his back.

Jaskier whimpers, his face ashen, and the sound turns Geralt’s stomach. The bard’s eyes clench shut.

“Jaskier.”

Geralt’s slow-beating heart is hammering so loud and so hard he wonders if the bard can hear it. This close, the scent of Jaskier’s pain is so pungent and potent that it clogs Geralt’s throat. _He dove in front of a spell for you_ , a voice hisses in Geralt’s mind. _That pain should be yours._

“Fuck,” Jaskier manages to wheeze out weakly.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking, you _goddamn_ idiot?” Geralt grits out, and his voice very nearly breaks. It’s the wrong thing to say—Geralt always says the wrong things. Always, always, always. And always when he’s afraid. But it’s the only ones of the words he can think to say that will push past his tight throat.

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier replies, his own voice strained but for a different reason, “you’re quite lucky I love you, or else I might be insulted.”

The words echo in Geralt’s mind. _I love you, I love you, I love you_. Over and over and over. They ring with an ease and sincerity, because Jaskier never did _anything_ by halves, even when he may be dying. _Dying_. And Geralt feels something breaking inside of him.

And still, the words repeat. _I love you, I love you, I love_ _you_ —Until the words sound less like Jaskier and a lot more like his mind repeating it back to the bard.

“Jask,” he whispers, his throat too tight to even get the bard’s full name out. His hands are shaking a bit, but he thinks Jaskier won’t mind, and he brushes his hand against Jaskier’s face. “You can’t—you…” He can’t just… just _say_ things like that, so boldly, so cavalier.

With a courage that Geralt cannot match.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says instead. Because the words that flood him cannot find their way through his chest to his lips.

His swirling thoughts cut out as he sees Jaskier try suddenly to push himself up. Mindful of the damage to the human’s ribcage, Geralt lets the hand on his face slip to the back of the bard’s neck and grabs his less-injured arm to ease him up. Then Geralt just holds on tight. An irrational part of Geralt thinks that if he lets go, Jaskier might really slip from him in a way that Geralt cannot fix.

The Witcher breathes in, and the sharp scent of Jaskier’s pain is starting to lift. Jaskier offers a faint smile. “Not a lethal spell, it would seem.”

A distant part of Geralt goes a little weak with relief. The rest of him wants to shake the bard. “You didn’t know that,” he snaps. Because Jaskier _didn’t_ , he’d just decided to dive in front of a spell that could have been _anything_. He could have… he almost…

“A moot point, really, Geralt.”

And that… that _hurts_ , in a different kind of way. There’s no regret in Jaskier voice or his scent or his eyes. He would do it again, Geralt knows this, and it terrifies him. Jaskier would risk himself for Geralt.

Geralt shakes his head a little and starts to reply, to ask why, but the breath he takes still has that haze of acridity to it. He frowns instead. “You’re still hurt,” he says. It’s not a question.

Jaskier then has the audacity to wave a dismissive hand. “Some broken ribs.”

“Hm.” He could help with those, he thinks. His gaze flickers over Jaskier’s chest. He knows how to help with those injuries. The spell wasn’t lethal. Geralt should be feeling _relieved_ and a small part of him is. The rest of him feels like the ground has shifted beneath him and Geralt still doesn’t know how to hold himself steady. _I love you_ , Jaskier’s voice echoes in his mind, but it only makes Geralt feel a little more cracked open. Because maybe Jaskier didn’t mean it. Maybe it was just something he said in the throes of dying--

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, so unbearably soft. He instinctively meets the bard’s gaze. Jaskier’s bright blue eyes are remarkably steady. “I meant it, you know. I do. Love you, I mean.”

Geralt’s breath hitches in his throat. Because here was this remarkably fragile person who had followed him across the Continent for years, had seen the absolute worst that Geralt had to offer… this person who radiated warmth and light and _love_ , so much love, and was everything Geralt _wasn’t_ , and was saying these words so easily. Geralt’s fear had come true—Jaskier’s light had seen the darkest parts of him, but Jaskier chose to love him anyway.

“ _Jaskier_ ,” he manages, and his own voice has never sounded quite so weak to his own ears. He leans forward until his forehead is against Jaskier because Jaskier was that beacon of light calling to him. Grounding him. “I… fuck.” He can’t find the words again. “ _Fuck_.”

He does the only thing he can think to do in this moment, to try to convey all the words he can’t find. He brushes his lips against Jaskier’s, softly. Afraid to demand or hurt, afraid, afraid, afraid. So he presses his dry, cracked lips against Jaskier’s impossibly soft ones. Questions he dare not ask taste like salt that he passes to Jaskier’s own, and Jaskier answers with silent promises and a breathless little huff of contentment.

Jaskier is more than a beacon. He is a lighthouse, calling Geralt home. And Geralt cannot help but feel that he’d follow that light to the ends of the world.


End file.
